


Freely Given

by vita_dulcedo_spes



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: More if the story continues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6419947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vita_dulcedo_spes/pseuds/vita_dulcedo_spes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse of Matthew Murdock's private life, and a glimpse of Daredevil's. More to come if there's interest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freely Given

**Author's Note:**

> Please be kind, reader. This story, very short, is meant to be read slowly and in one sitting.
> 
> I strongly recommend listening first to the piece Matthew plays at the beginning - preferably with headphones (it is /that/ kind of music). It's Verdi's "Laudi alla Vergine Maria" (Lauds to the Virgin Mary), one of his "Quattro pezzi sacri" (Four Sacred Pieces), easily found on YT.
> 
> The music (1800s, Italian) is set to a famous Marian prayer from Paradiso XXXIII of Dante's Commedia (early 1300s, also Italian).

_Tu se' colei che l'umana natura_  
_nobilitasti sì, che 'l suo fattore_  
_non disdegnò di farsi sua fattura..._

 _In te misericordia, in te pietate,_  
_in te magnificenza, in te s'aduna_  
_quantunque in creatura è di bontate!_

_Ave! Ave!_

_Ave..._

(You are the one who so ennobled  
human nature, that its Maker  
did not disdain to make Himself His making...

In you is pity, in you compassion,  
in you all-giving kindness. All good in you  
is gathered that creature-form can bear.

Ave...)

The young lawyer reached out and found the familiar 'stop' button on the aged portable CD player atop the table in front of him. Every particle in his body was on edge as Verdi's music came to static. Every part of him - that which was conscious in him - seemed utterly awake.

A tear was caught in the stubble on the left side of his face, and another was forming in his right eye. His breath caught once - it caught a second time - and with the simple sincerity of religious inclination he dropped from the couch to his knees, then lowered himself until his forehead touched his apartment's soft carpet, surrounding his head with his arms.

Here on the floor, partially under the coffee table, eyes shut tight, he sighed out a soft, "Oh, Mary."

After a deep breath, he continued softly, with many little breaths peppering the prayer: "Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias...a periculis cunctis libera nos semper...Virgo gloriosa et benedicta."

(We fly to Thy protection, O Holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions...but deliver us always from all dangers...O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.)

Matthew Murdock opened his eyes, seeing nothing. He tried to describe to himself the awakeness he was experiencing so intensely in that moment. _Sweet. Pointed._

There was something else. _Whole. Liberating._

And? _The union of something._

A few minutes passed sweetly in this way.

After, Murdock pulled himself carefully from under the table, cracking a few joints as he unfolded and stood. He felt for the CD player, turning it off completely, and rubbed his head. _Ave...!_ He dragged his coat off the couch and wrapped himself into it, shaking out the wrinkles (so he hoped). _Blessed are the meek..._ The white cane leaning against the arm of the couch was snapped up with a whick into his right hand. _Blessed are the merciful..._

His phone blurted out a reminder for his next appointment in a woman's suave voice: "DERRICK WILLIAMS. TWENTY MINUTES. DERRICK WILLIAMS. TWENTY MINUTES." Murdock was already in the hallway shutting his apartment door, bag hanging from his shoulder, red-tinted sunglasses on his nose, cane tucked under his arm, before the automated voice ended.

He walked out into a warm summer day, down the steps of his apartment building, seeking the street with his usual reserved dignity. This particular dignity of his did not stem from a Catholic understanding, or from some sense of haughtiness derived from an academic pedigree; it came rather unconsciously from his father, from the fighter in the ring, the man who came home bruised and bloody and went out the next day smiling again.

Where the sidewalk began, he wicked the cane back and forth - as always, rather a courtesy to those around him than an aide to himself.

The sounds, the smells, the vibrations of Hell's Kitchen - even its metallic taste - reached out to everyone in the old Irish neighborhood. The very pavement was soaked with it all, and the air was saturated. Was Murdock the only one listening?

A couple was just beginning a spat in a third-floor apartment overhead ( _the comments from the apartment below as Murdock passed by suggested it was not for the first time_ ). A new Venezuelan supplier of heroine had shifted his product here ( _a whiff of the air suggested it was not high quality; it wouldn't last in this competitive market_ ). An eighteenth-century viola da gamba was being played indoors one street over ( _the deep mournful vibrations rising through the pavement suggested a piece by Sainte-Colombe_ ).

\-- Then the echoing crash of the instrument and a strangled cry from the same spot.

Murdock's cane froze.

\-- Another cry.

He started walking again, quickly now, and turned east into a shaded alley. The moment he felt himself alone - judged by the absence of nearby heartbeats - he bolted down the alleyway, almost throwing away his cane as a matter of habit.

He emerged into the stream of people that occupied the sidewalk of the next street - braking to a stop as he left the cool shadows and felt sunlight pour over him again.

Murdock stood perfectly still, and leaned forward on his cane. He was the picture of calm to passersby - no one but Foggy would have noticed the numbing grip of his hands on the cane. Internally, he filtered through the hundreds of heartbeats, footfalls, breathing patterns, car tires, anything echoing through this street that he could grasp and understand and use.

But she was gone. The murderer had disappeared.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like more, please leave a comment (if there is interest I'll continue the story). All other comments are welcome, too, of course. :-)
> 
> The translation of the prayer from Dante's Commedia used by Verdi in his "Laudi alla Vergine Maria" is part mine and part Dr. Robin Kirkpatrick's (Cambridge).
> 
> The translation of the Marian prayer, "Sub tuum præsidium," is the common (quite accurate) translation.
> 
> If you would like a good propædeutic piece to Monsieur Sainte-Colombe, or just some really dramatic background music, search YouTube for "Sainte-Colombe, Les Pleurs, Jordi Savall."


End file.
